Post-War South
What was destroyed during the Civil War?
Infrastructure. Thousands of plantations, farms, and homes were destroyed.
What successful industries 1st appeared in the South in the late 19th century?
Railroads, coal mining, timber, iron/steel, and cotton textiles.
What did the 13th Amendment (1865) do?
Emancipated 4 million slaves (and unborn children/grandchildren); Abolished the institution of slavery.
What groups of Black people were the most likely to be targets of lynching?
Criminal suspects, successful/upwardly mobile Black people, Black people who "acted white" or "forgot their place".
Name three achievements made by Southern Black people in the decades after the Civil War.
4,000 public schools, 1st Black colleges, and a professional middle class.
How many people died nationally during the Civil War?
750,000 people.
Identify 4 reasons for the failure of Southern industrialization.
Capital shortage, Northern competition, small consumer market, and sharecropping.
What did the 14th Amendment (1868) do?
Made Black citizenship legal; Everyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. It also stated that no state shall deny "equal protection of the laws".
Identify three features of the Mississippi plan.
The poll tax, literacy/voter qualification tests, and property requirements.
Name three achievements made by Southern Black people in the decades after the Civil War.
More Black business owners, more Black landowners, the Great Migration.
What impact did the 13th Amendment have on the Southern economy?
The 13th Amendment destroyed the institution of slavery. This wiped out 2/3 of the South's wealth and left the South very poor.
What was sharecropping?
The dominant economic institution in Lower South (1870s-1960s). After the Civil War, plantation owners needed workers. Freedmen wanted to buy land to farm, but they had no money. Freedmen began to rent land from the plantation owners to grow cotton. They were required to pay the plantation owner half of the cotton profits. The intent was to be able to gradually buy the land they were renting and become landowning farmers, but that rarely happened.
What did the 15th Amendment (1870) do?
Black men could now vote and serve in government.
What did the Supreme Court decide in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?
Segregation was deemed to be constitutional; "Separate but Equal".
What was the Great Migration?
From 1915 to 1975 6 million Southern Black People left the South for cities in the North/West Coast.
What was the South's response to their wealth being destroyed?
After the Civil War, the South started to industrialize.
What was the Crop Lien system?
General store owners sold food and supplies to sharecroppers on credit for high markup prices. After the sharecroppers paid the landowner and general store owner, most people owed more than they earned. This lead to long-term debt and life-long sharecropping.
Which amendment eventually made it so Black women could also vote?
The 19th Amendment.
What did vagrancy laws do?
Made unemployment a crime. Black men were imprisoned for not having jobs.
What was the cultural impact of the Great Migration?
The Great Migration allowed for talented Black people to become successful. Black music, literature, and sports talent spread across the nation.
Was post-war industrialization an overall success in the South?
No, it was not.
What impact did sharecropping and the Crop Lien system have on the South's economy?
Sharecropping and the Crop Lien system trapped the South into cotton dependency, which discouraged industrialization and created extreme poverty for both black and white Southerners.
What was the Southern response to the reconstruction amendments?
Southern states found legal ways to get around them.
What was the convict lease system?
Prisoners were rented out to businesses (railroad/ timber/mining companies/cotton plantations). The prisons were paid a monthly fee while the prisoners were paid nothing.
What were the advantages brought on by the Great Migrations?
There was less violence, higher wages, better schools, Black people could vote, and overall there was more freedom.